Dead Celebrity Alert

In Memoriam: Mark Chorvinsky (1954-2005)

Mark Chorvinsky, the Editor/Publisher of Strange Magazine and the strangemag.com website, passed away on July 16, 2005, several months after his completion of issue 23 of the online Strange Magazine, for which he wrote his final articles — “Glowing Eyes” and “Cowboys & Dragons: Part Three.” …

His entire life had been devoted to the strange, anomalous, and unusual. His interests were wide-ranging, and included studies of the historical Merlin, stage magic, fantastic movies, cinematic special effects, and the entire fortean field. He was one of the leading investigators of strange phenomena, and often marshaled the resources of a network of friends and associates all over the world.

He researched and wrote about a broad array of fortean topics, from phantom dogs and the alien qualities of Venus flytraps, to sightings of the grim reaper, the Loch Ness Monster and mysterious blobs.

Mark was known for his in-depth, and sometimes controversial, investigations. … Read full obituary

LOS ANGELES — Myron Floren, the accordion virtuoso who came to fame in the mid-1950s as a regular on The Lawrence Welk Show, has died. He was 85.

Floren, who continued performing until the last few months, died of cancer Saturday at his home in Rolling Hills Estates, according to Margaret Heron, syndication manager for the Welk show.

Dubbed “The Happy Norwegian” for his perpetual grin, Floren joined Welk’s orchestra on the road in 1950. …

Floren never tired of playing the accordion for an audience.

“I’m going to keep squeezing this thing,” he once said, “until nobody calls anymore.” … Read full obituary

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Long John Baldry, the British blues legend who helped launch the careers of such rock greats as Rod Stewart and the Rolling Stones, has died, his agent and friends said. He was 64.

Mr. Baldry was admitted to a Vancouver hospital with respiratory problems in April and died of a chest infection Thursday, agent Frank Garcia said on the musician’s website.

“The music world has lost an absolute legend,” said friend Anya Wilson, a Toronto music publicist who worked with Mr. Baldry in the 1970s. “They’ve lost one of the first and most powerful white blues singers — an innovator, an entrepreneur of new music and one of the most wonderful people you could hope to meet.” … Read full obituary

LOS ANGELES – James Doohan, the burly chief engineer of the Starship Enterprise in the original “Star Trek” TV series and motion pictures who responded to the command “Beam me up, Scotty,” died early today. He was 85.

Doohan died at 5:30 a.m. at his Redmond, Wash., home with his wife of 28 years, Wende, at his side, Los Angeles agent and longtime friend Steve Stevens said. The cause of death was pneumonia and Alzheimer’s disease, he said.

The Canadian-born Doohan was enjoying a busy career as a character actor when he auditioned for a role as an engineer in a new space adventure on NBC in 1966. A master of dialects from his early years in radio, he tried seven different accents.

“The producers asked me which one I preferred,” Doohan recalled 30 years later. “I believed the Scot voice was the most commanding. So I told them, ‘If this character is going to be an engineer, you’d better make him a Scotsman.”‘ … Read full obituary

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Retired Gen. William Westmoreland, who commanded U.S. forces during the Vietnam War from 1964 to 1968 and advocated a strong military buildup at a time when American casualties were mounting, has died.

Westmoreland died Monday of natural causes at Bishop Gadsden retirement home, where he had lived with his wife, said his son, James Ripley Westmoreland. He was 91. …

The silver-haired, jut-jawed officer, who rose through the ranks quickly during World War II and later became superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., contended the United States did not lose the conflict in Southeast Asia. …

In 1982, he filed a $120 million lawsuit against CBS over a documentary “The Uncounted Enemy: A Vietnam Deception,” which implied he had deceived President Johnson and the public about enemy troop strength in Vietnam. … Read full obituary

Geraldine Fitzgerald, who appeared in such 1930s films as “Dark Victory” and “Wuthering Heights” and later had a career on the New York stage, died Sunday in Manhattan of Alzheimer’s disease. She was 91.

The Irish-born actress received an Academy Award nomination for her performance as Isabella Linton in “Wuthering Heights” (1939), appearing with Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon in director William Wyler’s screen version of the Emily Bronte novel.

That same year she also starred with Bette Davis, George Brent and Humphrey Bogart in tearjerker “Dark Victory.” Fitzgerald had a tumultuous career at Warner Bros. in the 1940s, refusing roles and being placed on suspension by the studio. Yet during that decade she managed to appear in such films as “Shining Victory,” “The Gay Sisters,” “Watch on the Rhine” and film noir gem “Nobody Lives Forever” starring John Garfield.

In later years, she appeared as a character actress in such movies as “Ten North Frederick,” “The Pawnbroker,” “Rachel, Rachel,” “Harry and Tonto,” “Arthur” and “Easy Money.” …

Among her New York stage appearances were roles in several Eugene O’Neill revivals, most notably as Mary Tyrone in a 1971 off-Broadway production of “Long Day’s Journey into Night,” which starred Robert Ryan. In 1977, she starred with Jason Robards in a revival of O’Neill’s “A Touch of the Poet.”

Fitzgerald also developed a nightclub act… Read full obituary

Former Conservative Prime Minister Sir Edward Heath has died at the age of 89.

His successor Lady Thatcher said he was a “political giant” and “in every sense the first modern Conservative leader”.

Sir Edward, who was knighted in 1992, won his first seat for the Tories in Bexley in 1950 and led the 1970-74 Conservative Government.

He took Britain into the European Economic Community and sent troops to Northern Ireland. He lost the leadership to Mrs Thatcher in 1975. … Read full obituary

AP — Hall of Fame coach Hank Stram, who took the Kansas City Chiefs to two Super Bowls and was known for his inventive game plans and exuberance on the sideline, died Monday, his family said. He was 82. … Read full obituary

Australian film director William Mather-Brown rescued 11-year-old Nicolas but could not save himself from the fast-flowing Var River, near Nice.

Sodden and distressed after his father pushed him onto the river bank, Nicolas took his sister Olivia, 7, and ran for help.

“I think my daddy has just drowned,” he told a couple who were strolling nearby.

Mr Mather-Brown’s body was pulled from the river, 200 metres downstream, three hours later. His ashes will be returned to Australia this week.

Family and friends paid tribute to the 41-year-old film director, who counted actors Ewan McGregor and David Wenham and superbike champion Troy Bayliss as close friends. … Read full obituary

Shelby Foote, the author who died in Memphis June 27 at the age of 88, never imagined fame would come the way it did. As a youth in Mississippi, he dreamed of being a great novelist, like William Faulkner, whom he and his boyhood pal Walker Percy once visited. Foote wrote novels but none as acclaimed as those of either Faulkner or Percy. It was his gigantic piece of nonfiction — a three-volume, 2,934-page, 1.5 million-word history, The Civil War: A Narrative — that convinced critics of Foote’s remarkable skills. But despite the 20 years of research and writing he put into his monumental work, most Americans would never have heard of Shelby Foote. That changed over the course of one week in 1990 — the week the writer became a talker.

In five consecutive nights in the autumn of that year, Foote made 89 appearances on Ken Burns’s PBS series The Civil War. Fourteen million viewers saw him in his Memphis study talking about the war as if it had happened the day before. His detailed knowledge, Delta drawl, and courtly manner helped make the series a smash hit and turned him into a prime-time star, a status ironically that he did not totally enjoy. He lamented “this hoorah” and “this ruckjack,” the commotion that brought forth a “horrendous” flow of letters and phone calls, not to mention nosy questions from journalists. When one reporter asked if he had any hobbies, he replied: “Absolutely not.” Then he added, “I drink from time to time.” … Read full obituary

JACKSON — John Walton was one of the world’s richest men, an heir to the Wal-Mart fortune. But on Thursday, three days after he was killed in an aircraft accident, Walton’s friends and family remembered him for his giving and his kindness, describing him as the “ultimate hero” to his wife and son. …

Walton died Monday after the experimental, kit-built plane he was piloting crashed in a sagebrush flat near the Jackson Hole Airport in Grand Teton National Park. He was 58. Friends have described Walton as an experienced pilot who loved flying. …

Walton’s father, Sam Walton, founded Wal-Mart, a discount store chain that became one of the world’s biggest companies. With an estimated net worth of $18.2 billion, John Walton was one of the world’s wealthiest individuals. … Read full obituary

John Fiedler, the actor whose distinctive high-pitched tones made him perfect for the voice of Piglet in Disney’s Winnie the Pooh films, died on Saturday. He was 80.

According to Hollywood legend, Fiedler was hand-picked by Walt Disney himself for the role of Pooh Bear’s fretful best friend. Disney is said to have overheard a show in which the actor appeared and said of his voice: “That’s Piglet.”

Before starting work on the Pooh films in the 1960s, Fiedler had played a juror in Sidney Lumet’s court drama Twelve Angry Men and appeared in the Sidney Poitier-starring drama A Raisin in the Sun. He made appearances in dozens of films and was working right up until this year, when he voiced Piglet once more in Pooh’s Heffalump movie. … Read full obituary

Luther Vandross, the silky-voiced R&B crooner who spun romance into hits like “Here and Now” and “Any Love,” winning eight Grammy Awards, died yesterday afternoon at John F. Kennedy Medical Center in Edison, N.J. He was 54.

The medical center, which did not disclose the cause, released a statement saying that Mr. Vandross “had a peaceful passing under the watchful eye of friends, family and the medical support team.” It added that he “never fully recovered” from a stroke he suffered at his Manhattan apartment on April 16, 2003. …

Mr. Vandross sold an estimated 30 million albums. His “Dance With My Father” album on J Records made its debut at No. 1 on the Billboard chart while he remained hospitalized from the stroke. … Read full obituary